5 Patna-bound train passengers looted

Patna, Aug 23: Five Patna-bound passengers of Jansadharan Express from Delhi were drugged and looted by a gang of miscreants yesterday, police said here today.

Five youths, who boarded the general compartment of the express train from New Delhi on Thursday, were befriended by the three miscreants, who offered them biscuits after the train left Allahabad.

Though the five youths, who were carrying about Rs 65,000 in cash and some valuables, first rejected the offer, they were somehow persuaded by the conmen to eat them.

Soon all of them became unconscious, enabling the conmen to rob them of the entire money and valuables before getting down from the train somwewhere between Varanasi and Patna.

As the train reached Danapur, its final destination near here yesterday, the railway police found the five youths lying unconscious in the general compartment.

They were taken to the Danapur Railway Hospital where their condition was stated to be critical but stable.

The youths, aged between 20 and 28 years, hailed from Ara, Chapra and Supoul, were returning to their native villages with the money and valuables, police said.

Incidentally, this was the third such incident in about two months when unsuspecting passengers were drugged and looted by some organised gangs in long distance trains passing through Bihar.

However, police had failed to arrest anyone so far, nor recovered any money or valuables.

UNI